


day late and a buck short

by trekinist



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Other Additional Tags to Be Added, this really is just Dirk hating himself for about 1500 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28352793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trekinist/pseuds/trekinist
Summary: After everything falls apart, what's left? Who's left?
Kudos: 5





	day late and a buck short

**Author's Note:**

> For @KKMcShouty for Homestuck Secret Santa 2020

One moment you're there, in the thick of it, and you've nearly got this spidery troll taken down -

And the next you're back in the Outer Ring, as far away as possible from the action. It takes you one second to realize that Jake hadn't been able to hold onto his Hope-powers anymore, and another to realize that they were going to die without him there. By the time this thought has processed you're already flying as fast as possible back towards the planet with the volcano. You know, technically, you were already moving, since the part of you with Jake was just a figment of his imagination that grew so strong that it became real, then merged with you, but you really can't fucking think about that right now, because people are _dying_ , Dirk. 

You have no fucking idea what happened. This isn't like you, you're supposed to  _know_ . But as you approach the place where Derse used to be and the volcano planet is now, you think that maybe,  _maybe_ you can make it while they're still - 

Two sharp pains ram through your chest and you stop suddenly. You don't know how you know, but you do. Jake and Jane are dead, permanently this time. You hover there for a moment, watching entire planets fly past you like meteors and collide and explode into debris, and you think that can't be right, but you  _know_ . In the remnants of buildings from your planet, in the shadow of the broken statue of Yaldabaoth, you know, and the fact of knowing rams through your chest again and stays there. 

Can someone die of grief? Can someone who's conditionally immortal die of grief? You're not sure. You almost wish you would so the pain would stop.

If you were braver, you'd do it yourself.

You stare at the dissolving planets and pixelated space for what feels like years. It must only be a little bit, though, because there's a voice behind you.

“Hey there,” the voice says, sounding too kind and too bright to be in this place. “Are you Dave's bro?”

Dave. He was there, too, though you aren't sure what he had been doing. Chasing something into the forest. You had only gotten a brief glimpse.

“Hey! Did you hear me?” the voice interrupts your thoughts, slicing in like a knife. You still haven't turned around to see who it is. “Where is everyone?” It sounds irritated now. You guess it's not polite to ignore someone who's talking to you, but there are extenuating circumstances. The remains of four planets falling apart in front of you, for instance. Or knowing two of the people closest to you just died in a very permanent way.

“I'm John, by the way,” the voice adds as an afterthought. John. _John_. Who was John? 

“John,” you repeat, the name foreign yet familiar on your tongue. John. Jane. Jake. He must be Jane's grandpa, you think, and suddenly you hate him, you _hate_ him for being here, for being alive, for being fucking _clueless_ and showing up too late to _do_ anything, and you hate yourself for all the same reasons, but that's old news, isn't it? 

You realize you've been quiet for too long yet again. It's not fair to him for you to project your self-hatred on him, but you're going to do it anyway. You decide to speak again. “Could you please just leave me alone.”

“What? _Why?_ ” he demands, and _Christ_ , it really would be too easy for the person who found you grieving the loss of your family to have common sense, wouldn't it? Exploding planets, lava everywhere, the space around you both literally dissolving into pixels, and someone watching the scene like you would watch a car crash – connect the _fucking_ dots. 

“I don't understand.” You nearly bite through your tongue holding back your retort to that. “Do you know what happened here?”

The pixelation is starting to happen to you now, nipping at your ankles and hands like a swarm of pirhanas. It fucking hurts, and you should probably move, probably keep living because that's what they would have wanted you to do, but you don't want to. You're so tired of being too late, of being the last one standing, of  _being_ , that you're just going to let the game swallow you whole. It's already taken everything else. 

Reluctantly, you decide John deserves an answer. “Yeah.” You do know what happened here. You know it like you know the sword in your hand and the glasses slipping off the bridge of your nose. 

“I failed.”

\-------

It turns out that human bodies aren't built with game data, so when you're absorbed by the game and your body is torn apart into lines of code, it hurts and it hurts the whole fucking time. Even after you're pretty sure you're entirely gone it still hurts and you're still aware of it. You suppose you deserve it.

The upside is that being fully integrated into the game data means you're able to access information about what's going on and what happened on the planet. The downside is knowing what happened. Jane's death is classified as Just – which _really_ doesn't seem fair to you – and Jake's was Heroic, of _course_ it was, he was always obsessed with the leading man in films. Thinking of him in the past tense makes the area you think your chest would be hurt.

You can't find anything about Roxy, but you're sure she's gone just like the rest of you, how could she have survived? Maybe it's her aspect. Maybe you're just not trying hard enough. You don't know. You're there for what feels like forever, being pelted with information from the game that just both ruined and ended your life. It was supposed to be an escape from the isolation, you think bitterly. It did always have a sense of irony.

After a while, you think you hear something. From a planet somehow untouched by the carnage around you, you hear -

Music?

Who the fuck is playing _music_ right now?

You think, dimly, that it sounds like organ music, but you've never even seen an organ in person, let alone heard one, just snippets in old videos you'd dug up on the internet. You can't get any visuals, because you don't have eyes anymore, so you don't get any warning before a gust of wind shoots outward from the planet into the entire Medium, all the way through the Outer Ring, where your body had been before you dissolved, and wipes away the glitches.

You find yourself, suddenly, in a body again, in the same place you had been – planets still falling apart around you, but in a slightly more solid way. It hurts, but at least it hurts in the way having a body hurts, where you can put a name to everything. You didn't know that dead people got to keep the sore shoulders they'd had in life.

Wait -

_Are_ you alive? You take off your shades, helpfully reconstituted on the bridge of your nose, and use the light of Skaia to look at your reflection. One eye looks normal, orange iris staring back, but the other is milky white. Suddenly the question no longer becomes whether or not you're alive, but whether or not that matters anymore. A superimpositon of alive and dead in one body. Is this sustainable? Does that matter either? You wonder if Jane, with her aspect, would have been able to tell you anything - 

There's a nauseating rush of energy and when you get your bearings, you're on the planet with the volcano, standing on what remains of a tall tower, looking down on a lake of lava. You get the sense you're not alone, and you look around to see Jane and Jake standing there, eyes white but staring in shock. Jane's hands are covering her mouth, and Jake has his hands lifted in from of him, unsure, as if he were reaching out but had thought better of it. “Dirk?” he asked, cautious, taking a step forward. 

You try to find your voice and manage to do so for once. “Hey,” you croak. 

Jane lets out a sound like a strangled sob at the same time Jake rushes forward to wrap his arms around you. You drop your glasses, still in your hands, and they clatter loudly against the ground. You realize belatedly that Jane's clothes aren't red anymore. You wonder if she came out of it before or after she was killed. When Jake lets go, he immediately demands, “What happened?” 

You try to explain, while Jane hovers a hand over you, examining you for injuries with her powers. You don't think you do a good job based on the faces they're making at you, but they don't push it. “We saw the wind, earlier,” Jane says, her brow furrowed. “It was probably the Breath player you mentioned seeing in the Outer Ring.” She crossed her arms, looking frustrated. “I can't get a good view on you. It's like you're alive and dead at the same time.” You shrug somewhat helplessly. 

“I just don't understand what went so _wrong_ ,” Jake complains. He looks self-conscious in his godtier outfit. At least his didn't have a cloth tiara. “It couldn't have gone much worse. What do we even do now?” 

That's a good question. You don't know about that one. “The Batterwitch is still out there,” you offer. “And – and we should try to find Roxy.” You feel something at that – determination, maybe? You're not sure, exactly, but it feels like a purpose of some kind. Judging by the nods Jane and Jake give you, they feel the same. You try to smile, but it probably looks wrong. You pick up your glasses and place them back on your nose. “Let's get going, then.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This one was difficult for me. Dirk isn't a character whose head I spend a ton of time in, but I do think a lot about the aftermath of Game Over that wasn't explored in canon. I might continue this later if I get up the gumption.


End file.
